Ethical organizations
Ethics of an organization can be defined as how organizations will ethically respond to external or internal stimulus. The ethics of an organization are interdependent with the culture of an organization. Organization ethics show the values of organization to the employees and other bodies irrespective of regulatory laws and the government. Employees are committed and attracted to ethical organizations as most people will always want to have good feelings about the work they do.Ethical organizations can be described as those organizations that freely embrace the ethical issues in every critical decision that they have to make regardless of how challenging the decisions are. In ethical organizations, the senior executives, the managers and the employees at every level do understand, recognize and are not afraid to argue on the ethical predicaments that are present when making a critical decision for the organization. When the employees are fully involved in discussions that are involved in ethics, they are in better position to support and appreciate the outcomes of the decisions made by the organization. In an ethical organization, when there are personal disagreements and the employees believe they are treated objectively and fairly, these employees will most likely be in support of the actions that the organization takes provided that the organization is ethical.
Organizations should consider ethics because it is the ethics that help the employees in defining the boundaries between what is unacceptable and what is unacceptable. Failure to follow ethics dearly costs an organization and results to huge fines, more government regulations and a customer confidence that is shattered. Employees should follow ethics in whatever kinds of jobs that they undertake because before they are employees, they are human beings. The employees should take part in protecting other people. They should help in avoiding circumstances such as the one where babies took “apple juice” that had no apples in it, women who got maimed by the devices of birth control, and the individuals whose retirement savings were stolen by the greedy high-placed charlatans in Enron and other organizations. The people who are affected by such scandals are our own siblings, parents, children, spouses and friends.
Attraction and commitment of workers to ethical organizations
We are living in a world where every person is connected to the environments which is surrounding us and to each other and it is for this reason the every employee would like to work in an organization that is ethical and one that would not result to harming those people that they love so much. The future of every person including the employees depends on how much they care for the environment that surrounds them and employees who are aware of this would not work for organizations that are not ethical.
Classical economists have assumed that human behavior is solely motivated by self interest and that human beings are rational actors of the economy and that their choices are based on cost or benefits. This has been proven wrong as there has been a lot of evidence to show that human beings also act for moral purposes that don’t involve costs and benefits. Example of this is the people who help strangers that are in problems, blood donors, kidney donors and such people as those who mail lost wallets to people they even don’t know. It is important to note that all members of the society have ethical and moral concerns and they also have their self interest in the economic concerns.
The managers want to work for ethical organization because they are the individuals who face the problems of managing and preventing unethical behaviors in their organizations. The United States Chamber of Commerce has estimated that Self-interest unethical conduct of theft at the workplace costs the business in the U.S. a total of $20 billion to $40 billion every year and it is thought that the employees are bear more responsibilities of these loses. The workers mostly carry out these self-interested unethical conducts because they have a notion that they are expected to do so or event because the organization is unethical and treats its workers unfairly.
Whatever the source of unethical behavior among employees, it is a problem of the management that very much persists. It even proves to be more challenging to the managers as when there is need to restructure as the managers are left to supervise many more workers. With many workers to be supervised, managers are unable to observe the behavior of the employees. These employees are then more likely to have little loyalty to organizations and as result are prone to involve themselves in unethical conducts which include theft. They managers find their work very difficult to work in organizations that do not uphold ethics and this makes it even harder to communicate the necessity of ethical behavior among the workers.
Organizations are most concerned on the ability to employ and retain their best employees. There is enough evidence to indicate that most workers are more committed and attracted to organizations that are ethical. It is suggested that the employees who are aware that their work is for a larger thing and with a noble purpose have exhibited traits of being dependable, loyal and as a result they are more inspired. Some recent surveys have indicated that it is crucial to determine how the ethics of an organization are affecting current and potential employees. According to a survey that was carried out by the Working Woman magazine says that “a majority of those people who were interviewed stated that they would not be willing to work for organizations with past cases of environmental accidents, worker accidents, insider trading, or a law firm that was involved in defending racketeers”.
Another survey carried out by national opinion research indicated that ethical behavior in corporate, respectful treatment and honest communications were ranked to be among the employees goals that are top-ranked before a good remuneration which was ranked eleventh on that survey while job security was ranked fourteenth. Ethics of the organization was ranked highly for the reasons that the workers translated the organization’s ethics into how the organization will personally treat them. Most people want to be employed in organizations where they will be proud of what they do and do not want to be working for bandits because when organizations acquire a negative publicity due to the activities they carry out, it is the workers who suffer.
Other academic studies indicate that most employees are attracted to firms that are socially responsible. It also found out that most workers are committed to firms with a caring climate, this to mean the firms that are concerned with the welfare of its workers and also the community, while those organizations that have “egoistic” climate (on the basis of self-interest and workers being left out to care for themselves) registered very low commitment levels. The studies also indicated that workers were more committed to the firms whose managers represented high ethical standards and the reward system of the firms supports discipline to unethical behavior.
Employees are also human beings and are very concerned about their personal reputation and relationships. In the current working environments, success is mostly depended on a person’s ability to effectively work with others. Ethics is a great factor in the relationships of work across all the departments and also in the project teams. It had been believed that “nice people finish last” and that “bad people come out first” are notions that are generally short-termed. An employee who has a reputation of being mean, difficult to work with, mean or selfish often suffer by fellow withholding crucial information and the promotions are given to others. In today’s business, an individual’s reputation is an important ingredient for personal satisfaction and success.
Ethical, unethical and ethical neutral organizations
Not all expectations of the society have been put into the law and for this reason, ethical responsibilities include the general responsibility of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong. There are many companies that I would prefer to work for, companies that go beyond fulfilling legal requirements and continue to carry out what they deem to be the ethical responsibilities. The United States Geological Service has a past record of commitment in providing the Nation with natural and earth science information. The organization has a responsible tradition of ethical conduct that follows all the activities of the USGS. Continuation of the tradition has an importance to the relevance of USGS in maintaining its reputation. All the employees of the USGS have been trained to uphold the high standards of integrity, impartiality and honesty and also to work in a manner that will ensure the enhancement of confidence and trust of the people in the Government. Another example is the Levi Strauss which was the first multination organization in the development of a code of conduct that is comprehensive. The code of conduct is designed to make sure that employees everywhere in the world feel safe and are treated with high respect and dignity. It is for such reasons that I would gladly work for such a company.
Another example of an ethical organization that I would like to work for is the Abbot Laboratories which deals with pharmaceuticals. This organization has gone above legal limits to provide even provide tests on AIDS and the protease inhibitor medicines at no profits to the African countries. The Chief executive of Abbott Miles D while talking about his visit to Africa said that he was still concerned that providing the drugs to some Africans at a cost was still very expensive for the victims of AIDS who needed to survive desperately. The executive officer also talked about the challenges of from some stakeholders who thought that their resources were should not be used to used on helping those people but he said that the because of its wealth and knowledge, the firm had special responsibilities to help the people who are in need. The reasons as to why I would prefer in such a firm is because I would have the opportunity to serve those people who have been neglected in the society. Other organizations ethical organizations I would work for include NOAA and Patagonia.
An example of a company I would not want to for is the GM as it has shown the traits of being unethical in the past as in the case where it was claiming that the design of its sidesaddle tank of fuel met all its federal regulations but a jury in Georgia was not convinced that the GM company had met all the ethical responsibility to avoid harm to a 17 year old boy who died when the truck’s fuel tank exploded. The GM Company was found negligent by the jury. There are some organizations that do not uphold the ethical behaviors which would include the Northrupp Grumman and the Boeing and I would not prefer to work for such companies because this would destroy my reputation to the people around me and as a result would affect our relationship. It would also affect my career as it no other employer would agree to employ me knowing very well that in the past I have been involved with an unethical organization. Ethically neutral organizations come out as the third category apart from the unethical and the ethical organizations. The ethically neutral organizations have been found to be lacking the awareness of ethics, self-centered, only caring of themselves and the bottom line of the organization rather than the other people.
References
Linda K. Trevino, K. A. (2010). Managing Business Ethics. New Jersey: Wiley Publishers.
